There is an increased emphasis on the use of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) for performing various activities in both civilian and military situations where the use of manned flight vehicles may not be appropriate. Such missions include surveillance, reconnaissance, target acquisition, target designation, data acquisition, communications relay, decoy, jamming, harassment, ordinance delivery, or supply.
Several different types of UAVs have been developed in order to perform these various missions. Some of these UAVs have been specially designed to focus on a single mission. Control and communication systems for UAVs may be tailored to a particular type of UAV or to meet specific mission requirements. Additionally, there are several ways to control a UAV, a ground control station (GCS), an automated landing system (ALS), and a pilot box.
Each of the different UAVs, their control and communication systems, and the different ways of controlling a UAV may not be compatible with each other. For example, a pilot box that may be used with a first type of UAV may not be able to communicate with and control a second type of UAV. This presents problems when organizations using a variety of different types of UAVs, such as the armed services, wish to reuse or interchange parts among UAVs. Additionally, as new UAVs are developed, serviceable control and communications equipment from prior UAVs may not be reused with the newly-developed UAVs.
Consequently, there is a desire to control different types of UAVs using a single control system. Further objectives and advantages, as well as the structure and function of exemplary embodiments will become apparent from a consideration of the description, drawings, and examples.